Longmont's Harvest Junction sold to Michigan REIT

Panattoni now out of Longmont retail market

By Tony KindelspireLongmont Times-Call

Posted:
06/08/2012 06:37:24 PM MDT

Updated:
06/08/2012 06:41:03 PM MDT

Harvest Junction Shopping Center was recently sold to a Michigan-based real estate investment trust for $72 million. Harvest Junction south opened in 2005 and Harvest Junction north, shown here, in 2006. The center was built by Panattoni Development Co., which went on to buy Twin Peaks Mall.
(Times-Call file photo)

LONGMONT -- Harvest Junction Shopping Center has been sold to a Michigan-based real estate investment trust for $69.2 million.

Ramco-Gershenson Properties Trust closed on the center earlier this month. Harvest Junction north and south were built by California-based Panattoni Development Co., which also ended up buying Twin Peaks Mall, only to have it go into foreclosure.

Lowe's was the first store to open in Harvest Junction south in late 2005, and stores began opening on the north side of Ken Pratt Boulevard in 2006.

Panattoni brought many retailers to the center that were new to Longmont, including Lowe's, Best Buy, Staples, DSW, Dick's Sporting Goods, Ulta Beauty, Petco, Ross and Chick-fil-A. Lowe's owns its own land and building.

According to a statement released by Ramco-Gershenson, the centers encompass 327,875 square feet of retail space and are 96 percent occupied.

The company also bought another 14 acres of land adjacent to Harvest Junction north for $2.7 million, which it has planned for expansion.

The purchase was first announced last month at the same time the purchase of centers in Missouri and Wisconsin was announced.

In a statement, Dennis Gershenson, president and CEO of the company, said the purchases are part of his company's concentration on "quality of life communities that have growing populations with high average household incomes and educational levels, as well as being located in close proximity to thriving industries."

Harvest Junction, just east of the Main Street/Ken Pratt Boulevard intersection, has about 33,000 cars driving by every day, according to city records, making it one of the most visible shopping centers in the city.

The sale marks Panattoni's exit from the Longmont retail market. One of the country's largest commercial builders, Panattoni was new to retail in the early 2000s when it announced plans to build Harvest Junction along the Ken Pratt Boulevard extension, which opened in December 2003.

Two years after its first Harvest Junction stores opened, Panattoni bought Twin Peaks Mall for $33.6 million. But a deal to partner with the city the following year never came to fruition, and shortly after that the national economy fell hard into the Great Recession.

By last fall, Panattoni owed its creditor, Bank of America, $26.5 million and the mall went into foreclosure.

NewMark Merrill Mountain States, which Panattoni hired in 2010 to take over management of the mall and Harvest Junction, bought the mall in February for $8.5 million.

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